Anping is where Taiwan first met the wider world by sea. Four centuries ago it was a sandbar island at the mouth of a great lagoon, and the Dutch, Koxinga, the Qing and British merchants each left something behind here: a fort, a battery, a temple or a warehouse. This walk starts at the Eternal Golden Castle, a Qing fortress near the sea, follows the waterfront past a giant statue of the sea goddess, crosses the canal into Anping's old town, and visits Fort Zeelandia and a warehouse swallowed by banyan trees, before ending at a small Qing cannon battery. It is about four kilometers, flat and breezy, with snack stalls never far away, and it is one of the most enjoyable self-guided walking tours in southern Taiwan for history told in brick, roots and sea air.

Before you set off

The walking takes about an hour, but allow three to four hours with time inside the forts and the Tree House, and longer if you graze your way along the old street. The route is flat, mostly on paved roads and waterfront paths, with a few narrow lanes in the old town. Anping is close to the sea and often breezy, but the sun is fierce for much of the year and the harbor front has little shade, so bring water, a hat and sunscreen, and refill at convenience stores in the old town. Winter is the most pleasant season; summer afternoons can bring thunderstorms, and typhoons sometimes pass in summer and early autumn. The Eternal Golden Castle, Fort Zeelandia and the Tree House each keep their own hours and charge entry, so check before you go. Weekends and holidays bring crowds to Yanping Street, so a weekday morning start is calmest. If you want to end with a sunset, time your walk so you finish in the late afternoon and head for the waterfront.

Eternal Golden Castle

Cross the bridge over the moat and stop at the arched gateway. The large characters above it read Yizai Jincheng, roughly a golden castle to last a hundred million years, written by Shen Baozhen, the Qing official who built it. He had good reason to hurry. In 1871, sailors from the Ryukyu Islands were shipwrecked on Taiwan's southern coast and dozens were killed in a clash with the Paiwan people who lived there. In 1874 Japan sent a military expedition to southern Taiwan in response, and the Qing court, alarmed, sent Shen to strengthen the island's defenses. This fortress, finished in 1876, was the result, and it was the first modern Western-style fort in Taiwan. French engineers helped design it: a square of earth ramparts faced with brick, a pointed bastion at each corner and a moat around the outside, built to resist the artillery of the age. Its guns were British Armstrong cannons, the latest thing at the time. Many of its bricks were carried over from the ruins of the old Dutch fort you will see later today. Walk up onto the ramparts, look at the replica cannons pointing out toward the sea, and find the statue of Shen Baozhen inside the walls. The fort saw use during the Sino-French War of the 1880s and the Japanese invasion of 1895, and the Japanese later sold off some of its guns. Leave by the gate and walk north along Guangzhou Road for about ten minutes to Anyi Road, then turn left. The tall statue of Mazu guides you into the park, about fourteen minutes in all.

Lin Mo-niang Park

A historic temple in Tainan You cannot miss the reason for this park's name. Rising above the lawns is a statue of Mazu, sixteen meters tall on a four-meter base, looking out toward the harbor mouth and the open sea. Lin Mo-niang was her name in life. According to tradition she was a girl from Meizhou Island in Fujian, born in the tenth century, called Moniang, the silent girl, because she did not cry as a baby. Stories say she could see sailors in danger and save them in her dreams, and after her early death she came to be worshipped as the protector of everyone who goes to sea. Fishermen, sailors and the early settlers who crossed the dangerous strait to Taiwan carried her statues with them, and she is now one of the most widely worshipped deities on the island. The statue here was donated by Shi Wen-long, the founder of the Chi Mei company, who hoped she would watch over the ships and fishermen the way the Statue of Liberty welcomes ships into New York. Walk to the edge of the park and look out over the water. Fishing boats and pleasure cruises slip in and out of the harbor, and on clear evenings the sun sets right over the sea, so this is a fine place to return to in the end. When you are ready, follow the waterfront path east along the harbor for about eight minutes to the open lawns of the next park.

Harborside Historical Park

This long green park runs beside the harbor, and from here you can look across the water to the old town of Anping, with the lookout tower of Fort Zeelandia rising above the rooftops. Stand by the water and try to picture it four hundred years ago. All of this was the Taijiang, a vast shallow lagoon protected from the open sea by a chain of long sandbars. Anping sat on the first of those sandbars, and the Eternal Golden Castle was built on the second. Ships could sail through a channel into the lagoon and right up to the walls of the Dutch fort, and smaller boats carried goods across the water to the mainland side, where the city of Tainan grew. The local name for the Anping sandbar, recorded by the Dutch as Tayouan, is one of the leading theories for the origin of the name Taiwan itself. Over the following centuries the lagoon silted up, helped by great storms and shifting rivers, until most of it became dry land, fish ponds and eventually city streets. In the Japanese era, a canal was dug to link the city to the harbor again, and it still runs just north of here. Today the park is a favorite of local families, with wide lawns, a big playground themed on the sea and Anping's sword lions, and benches facing the water. From the park, walk north along Anyi Road and cross the canal on the Anyi Bridge, whose name joins Anping and the Golden Castle. Continue straight up Pingsheng Road to Anping Road, where the old street begins, about eleven minutes in all.